The tragic events that took place the night of May 23 in Isla Vista have had a severe and direct impact on the UC Santa Barbara community, as well as on the family and friends of the victims. We want to acknowledge that members of the UCSF community also are feeling a sense of grief, bewilderment and loss.

The students of UCSF have initiated a solidarity vigil for all UCSF faculty, staff, students and trainees. The vigil will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, May 28, at 6 p.m., on Parnassus in Saunders Court.

Please also know that counseling services are available to faculty, staff and trainees through the Faculty & Staff Assistance Program, and, for students, through Student Health & Counseling.

In addition, we have strengthened our ability to warn faculty, staff, students, trainees and affiliates using the WarnMe mass notification system. If an imminent threat to life and safety were to occur, the UCSF police would activate the WarnMe system and members of the community would be alerted on their individual cell phone and other registered phone numbers. If you haven’t registered with WarnMe, I encourage you to take a few minutes and sign up.

Our faculty, staff, students and trainees constitute a large UC family, and this loss saddens and touches all of us.

I am delighted and honored to share the news that Peter Walter, PhD, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the UCSF School of Medicine, has been named to receive the 2014 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine.

Dr. Walter shares the prize with Kazutoshi Mori, PhD, professor of biophysics at Kyoto University, in Japan, for their discovery of the Unfolded Protein Response of the cell’s endoplasmic reticulum, which makes what Walter calls “life and death decisions” for the cell.

The award acknowledges the scientists’ work in understanding how the cell ensures that proteins are properly constructed, especially when the cell’s quality control system is overwhelmed. Because of their work, we now understand that when these basic systems malfunction, serious diseases can result, from type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease to the more arcane eye disease retinitis pigmentosa. This discovery has altered the field of biochemistry and is a perfect example of the importance of basic research in understanding both health and disease.

Peter, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, joins four previous Shaw laureates from UCSF: Herbert Boyer (2004), Yuet-Wai Kan (2004), Shinya Yamanaka (2008), and David Julius (2010). Widely considered the “Nobel Prize of Asia,” the Shaw prize recognizes individuals who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or applications, and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind.

For more information about Peter and his Shaw-winning work, please visit:...

I am pleased to announce the publication of the UC San Francisco Draft 2014 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). The LRDP is a comprehensive physical-land-use plan that is intended to guide UCSF’s growth and other physical changes through the year 2035, and applies specific strategies to achieve the academic, clinical and research missions of the university.

This document reflects four years of planning, including extensive consultation both within UCSF and with our neighbors. In preparing the Draft LRDP, we explored in detail a variety of potential projects for each campus site, which we discussed at seven community workshops in the Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, Mount Zion and Mission Center neighborhoods. The current plan reflects the feedback we received in those workshops.

Our main objective for the 2014 LRDP was to accommodate UCSF's projected program growth over the next two decades within the context of the communities and City in which we work, while promoting environmental sustainability, minimizing facility costs and ensuring that our facilities are seismically safe.

If fully implemented over the next 20 years, the 2014 LRDP would result in an additional 2.3 million gross square feet (gsf) in owned and leased buildings, for a total of 11.58 million gsf across all of UCSF’s sites. The LRDP proposes to accommodate most of this growth in new buildings at Mission Bay, where there is undeveloped land available and infrastructure planned to support such growth. Additional space is proposed in new buildings at UCSF’s Parnassus Heights, Mount Zion and Mission Center campus sites. LRDP proposals for Parnassus Heights also advance UCSF...

Finance3 went live on March 10. A major initiative affecting a significant and diverse population of campus, this effort included converting twenty-nine central systems to the new Chart of Accounts and launching MyReports and UPlan—two new financial tools that will benefit our campus by providing better and more robust data that will inform our decisions moving forward.

The Finance3 project exemplifies the best of UCSF, with significant collaboration and extensive input from across the campus. We send our thanks to all of the people who worked tirelessly over the last two years to implement Finance3 including:

Finance3 Champions from across the campus

UPlan Coordinators from each of the Control Points

MyReports and UPlan departmental Subject Matter Experts

Think Tanks and Local Process Design Groups from the Schools and Central Administration

Finance3 Project Teams comprising representatives from Budget and Resource Management, Controllers Office, IT and the Program Management Office

Finance Functional Leadership Team

In addition, we extend our appreciation to everyone who attended the Finance3 town halls and to those who completed the extensive training offered. Thank you in advance for your continued dedication and patience as we transition to these two new tools.